NEWS INPUT

FROM THE TOWERS TO THE PALACE

A great deal of travelling was done on Thursday 18th September
— lots of Newsfield staff members put on their suits, clambered into a
fleet of vehicles and zoomed off to London, setting out before dawn. And
several hundred CRASH, ZZAP! and AMTIX! readers headed towards a rendezvous in
London on the same day.

Why? Well, Newsfield was hosting a party in the famous Camden Palace disco
to launch a new magazine to advertisers. Readers of Newsfield’s computer
magazines were invited to join in the fun at the LM Launch Party.

A tiny bit of ‘Us and Them’ was involved: while Gaz Top (of Get
Fresh fame) hosted the disco and gave away lots of freebies on the ground floor
of the Palace, the people who control huge advertising budgets and industry
figures such as Ian Stewart from Gremlin Graphics,
Tim Chaney from US Gold, Paula Byrne from Rainbird and Ted Heathcote from Gargoyle Games looked on from the balconies.

Everyone who managed to get the day off to attend was rewarded with a
Limited Edition LM launch party T Shirt, and quite a few people went away with
a lot more. During the party, Gaz Top gave away several hundred pounds worth
of camera equipment, computer games and dozens and dozens of cheeky red LM
hats...

The LM Editorial team as you'll probably never ever see them
again — all in suits. Gaz Top, the one with the hat, isn't part of the LM
Editorial team, so he's not wearing a suit!

Things are happening on stage at the Camden Palace — the
audience crowds in, covered in LM T Shirts and Hats...

Jane Stanton reads the script for a camera commercial —
part of the competition which ended up with Jane winning a Konica camera kit!

NEW FOR OLD

Whilst strategy freaks twiddle their thumbs waiting for the next
Kevin Toms biggie President, they can take a nostalgic trip down
memory lane with a repackaged version of the slightly aged classic Football
Manager. This new version comes in a double cassette package, has had the
names of the players updated, but otherwise is the same game you knew and loved
back in 1982. Oh yes, there’s a competition to win a trip to the 1987 Cup
Final inside. A company spokesman seemed a bit vague about the price —
‘shop around and you might get it for less than a fiver’ is about
as definite as he’d get.

Another hoary old chestnut getting a quick lick of paint is Gyron.
This didn’t sell awfully well when it was released as a full price game
over a year ago, but now it has been rereleased on Firebird’s Silver range at £1.99. The game
features the previously unreleased Arena maze — played as the tiebreaker
in a competition run with the game when it was initially released. The winner
of this competition managed it in 18 minutes, can you solve the maze faster? If
you are a Gyron fan, you’ll want to have a look at this new maze.
Alternatively, if the game has never appealed to you before, at this price, it
might well be worth a look.

FROST BYTE IN SPRING?

Mikro-Gen has a suitably seasonal
theme to the first of its winter releases. Frost Byte is set in the
frosty planet Cosmia.

The battle for freedom, enlightenment, and all those nice things is being
lost by the Kreezers who have been captured by the ghoulish monsters who
inhabit the planet’s craters. The player controls a Kreezer — that
looks and behaves rather like a Slinky spring. The hero has managed
to escape the evil clutches of his captors and must now escape from the crater,
freeing five fellow Kreezers on the way, and then leading the Front
Liberation aux Kreezer (FLAK) to victory.

It’s an arcade adventure with shoot-em-up overtones and looks rather
pretty — it’s in line for a full review next month.

OOPS! SORRY HEWSONS!

Last month we managed to make a blunder of epic proportions: for
some reason an advertisement for Hewson’s Commodore game
Alleykat sneaked its way into CRASH. This has confused quite a few
people (not least Hewson themselves, who have no
plans for a Spectrum version at the moment.)

Everso sorry, folks. Promise it won’t happen again.

GALLIVANTING ALONG

Also arriving just too late for the reviewing team to get stuck
into was Galvan from Imagine —
another coin-op conversion. A quick look at the game reveals it to be a huge
arcade shoot ’em up where the lead character, Galvan, is faced by a whole
host of meanies. Some nifty footwork is needed to move around the screen, as
well as combat skills. Galvan starts off with just his bare hands, but
gradually acquires more powerful weapons. At the end of each level, a huge
Demon appears which has to be blasted apart piece by piece.

ESCAPE! From Ocean

Just as the magazine was going to bed, a cassette tied round a
half brick came crashing through the windows of CRASH Towers. When we
feverishly untied the package, it was found to be The Great Escape
making its escape from Ocean.

From those whiz programming Liverpudlians, Denton
Designs, it’s all about getting out of a POW camp. You control a
prisoner walking around a large 3D scrolling landscape. Whilst working out your
escape route, you’ve got to keep the old chin up by collecting red cross
parcels, and keep your nose clean by attending roll call.

Having worked out the system of guards the aim is to collect and hide escape
equipment. Getting caught means a quick frog march to solitary confinement for
a spell of morale-sapping thumb twiddling, so be careful...

NUCLEAR FREEZE-UP

Also on the late gate-crashers’ list is Ice
Temple from Bubble Bus. From the hitherto
little known Tom Prosser, it is an arcade adventure all about zipping about,
picking up some things and zapping others in a huge cave system.

The hero, Nick Razor, stumbles into the 800 screen Ice Temple in search of
his stolen motor and realises that he has entered a huge alien thermionic
reactor that threatens to turn everything into an icy waste. Find that car,
Nicky babe and disable the reactor before we all freeze our socks off!

COMPILATION CORNER

Already the first rush to compile older hits in time for
Christmas is happening. Both Durell and Virgin have just released compilations, which must put
them ahead of the crowd of software houses that will soon be going for the
Chrissie Stocking market.

Virgin has Now Games 3 — no
prizes for guessing that this is a sequel to the company’s two previous
efforts. The line up for this one is Nick Faldo Plays the Open from
the Argus Mind Games label, Codename Mat
II and View to a Kill from Domark,
Everyone’s a Wally from Mikro-Gen.
Virgin are also releasing a new version of their
own hit game Sorcery on the tape, featuring improved graphics and
extra rooms.

Durell has a very strong line-up for its
compilation modestly entitled Big 4. The four titles are all Durell games of varying vintages that were all rated
very highly by CRASH in their time. The big four in question are Combat
Lynx, Critical Mass, Turbo Esprit and
Saboteur.

SPECTRUM PLUS TWO HICCOUGHS?

Despite indications given at the PCW Show that the new Spectrum
would be available from the end of September, there’s still no sign of
the Spectrum Plus 2 — in the Ludlow shops, anyway!

According to other High Street retailers we contacted (on October 8th), Plus
Twos are not available for them to order from their head offices, and there is
no retail price available yet. This could mean that the machines are still at
least three weeks away from chainstore branches.

During this waiting period, the older Spectrum Plus and 128K models have
been discounted by several retailers. Comet are quoting £69.99 for the
Plus and £99.99 for the 128, whilst Dixons/Currys is offering deals on the
two models which include cassette recorders and joysticks for £109.99 and
£129.99 respectively.

As we went to press, a spokesperson at Amstrad said that shipments of the
Plus Two had started. Amstrad Distribution claimed to have shipped some
machines to independent retailers, and claimed that Dixons have taken a
shipment, so the Plus Two should be available by the time you read this.

Early Plus Twos apparently had problems when it came to working with a
domestic colour TV — but Amstrad claim there have been no technical
problems with the machine, and that the only difficulties they had at the PCW
show were caused by the TVs being used.

Amstrad wouldn’t comment on the question of incompatibilities with
existing peripherals — it appears that it is impossible to plug Interface
1 directly into the machine because the distance between the PCB and the bottom
of the case is greater than on previous models. Also, most add-ons are likely
to interfere with the RS232 port. The height between the top of the case and
the PCB has also been increased...